The objective of the library and information services provided by public libraries is to promote equal opportunities among citizens for personal cultivation, for literary and cultural pursuits, for continuous development of knowledge, personal skills and civic skills, for internationalisation, and for lifelong learning. LIBRARY ACT 904/1998

Information service

iGS or information Gas Station is the Helsinki City Library's virtual reference service. You can send your question on any subject through our web-page. You will receive an answer by e-mail within two weeks. The answer is also saved in our archive.

In addition to the webservice iGS also has a mobile reference service unit, the Information Barrel, that you can visit on tour for example at malls or at different happenings.

iGS also has a weekly radio program on the channel Ylen aikainen of the Finnish Broadcasting Company. Radio listeners send questions through the radio's web page or by phoning the editorial office. The questions are conveyed to iGS radio team that picks one question to be answered live on air.

About seventy persons from the Helsinki City Library staff participate in iGS. One or several staff members follow with the Information Barrel when it is on tour so that people can ask  anything. The rest of the time they work at their home libraries where they answer the questions received through the Internet, while taking care of the every-day library tasks.

History

iGS was opened in 2001. The Helsinki City Library built it with funds from the Access to Learning Award which the library received from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the summer of 2000.

Initially, iGS was planned as a two-year project. However, it has gradually become a part of the library's every-day activities. iGS is part of and has contributed to the changes in library work. It has also boosted information retrieval competence and knowledge of digital reference material of the library staff. On the 30th of May 2002 the Helsinki City Library rewarded iGS staff with a "Library Diamond".

The name 'information Gas Station' reflects the importance of access to information in our society. Information is as essential to people as gasoline is to cars. iGS promotes the public libraries’ information service work and with our motto we want to encourage more people to do what has always been done in public libraries: to ask anything.

In March 2004, iGS was awarded the ‘Owl of Knowledge’ prize and the ‘Information Expert’ honorary diploma by The Society for Finnish Information Specialists.

The magazine City named iGS the Best Reference Service in Town in 2005 (n:o 19/2005).
 

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